WWE Raw Recap: May 13, 2019

S27 episode 20

From London, England. With the new “Wild Card Rule” – who will show up from Smackdown tonight?

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WWE Raw Recap: May 13, 2019

S27 episode 20 Aired on May 13, 2019

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After stuffing Sami Zayn in a dumpster that was carted away by a garbage truck, Braun Strowman was forced to defend his Men’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match opportunity against the bitter Superstar in a Falls Count Anywhere Match. Find out how some surprise assists gave Zayn an unexpected advantage in this brutal contest waged throughout London’s O2 Arena.

The news wasn’t necessarily that Roman Reigns used the Wild Card Rule to shuffle his way over to Raw for the second straight week. The news might have been that The Big Dog played the card much more cannily this time, switching from last week’s bull-in-a-China-shop strategy to a slow burn attempt on “Miz TV,” to transform The Miz from genial pitchman (though that Miz-Reigns buddy comedy does have promise) to the chair-swinging brawler who threw hands with Shane McMahon.

The ploy worked, to a point. Reigns successfully pulled out Miz’s inner fire-breather throughout the interview, but it also brought out Shane, along with two enforcers — Raw’s Bobby Lashley and SmackDown LIVE Wild Card Elias — who attacked Reigns and Miz from behind to set up a tag team match in which they mostly held the former WWE Champion at bay.

Interference from Shane at a crucial juncture handed Reigns & Miz a disqualification victory, which itself was little more than a cue for an all-out stomping from Lashley & Elias, with the former SmackDown Commissioner getting some licks in as well. Despite their numbers disadvantage, Reigns & Miz achieved a moral victory from the ashes of the post-match beatdown when Reigns took out the entire opposition with a dive over the ropes and Miz helped chase Lashley and Elias away with a steel chair. If we’re talking wins and losses, Reigns & Miz probably saw things going a bit more decisively. But the Wild Card Rule seems to be more about making a statement, and this one is going to be hard to refute.

Double-champ Becky Lynch’s chest-puffing campaign across Raw and SmackDown LIVE has gotten her some major style points against Lacey Evans (who’ll challenge for the Raw Women’s Title on Sunday) and Charlotte Flair (who’ll contend for the blue jewel) over the last few weeks, but that same trash talk backed Lynch into a corner when she faced off with both atomic blondes in a two-pronged contract signing.

It wasn’t that Lynch was wrong on any of the points she raised during the confrontation — Lacey probably can’t afford to lose her first title match, and Charlotte probably can’t afford to lose another — but Charlotte proved to have the most prophetic statement of the night after she said that Becky’s desire to live up to her reputation as a fighting champion may have led her to pick one more fight than was good for her.

For tonight, at least, The Queen hit the nail on the head: Becky’s attempt to throw hands with both women after civility inevitably broke down led to her being double-powerbomed through the signing table by Flair and Evans. Of course, Sunday is not a done deal yet, and Becky Two Belts may once again pull off the impossible. But if she walks out of Money in the Bank as Becky One Belt — or Becky No Belts — it won’t be hard to identify where it all went wrong.

The Men’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match picture was shaken up in a major way in Raw’s main event, when Sami Zayn rode an assist from Baron Corbin and Drew McIntyre to defeat Braun Strowman in a Falls Count Anywhere Match where The Monster Among Men’s “Money” berth was on the line.

How we got there is a little convoluted — Zayn ran his mouth about last week’s dumpster incident in the presence of Strowman and Shane McMahon to get the match sanctioned — but while the former NXT Champion now faces an enormous opportunity, the contract is by no means assured. If anything, the bout was probably the starkest lesson yet of the every-man-for-himself makeup of the Money in the Bank Ladder Match: Alliances are temporary, friendship does not exist, and all that matters is the contract.

Fittingly, while Corbin and McIntyre showed up at every single opportune moment to help Zayn convert — he was mostly running away from Braun and chucking beers in his face to delay the inevitable before they appeared — the alliance was very clearly one of convenience. The two previously-announced Money in the Bank competitors (correctly) identified Strowman as the biggest threat in Sunday's match and were openly doing whatever was necessary to get him out of it. “Whatever was necessary” turned out to be a lot, as a double suplex through a ladder, Claymore from McIntyre and three-man stack finally kept The Gift of Destruction down for three — and that isn’t even counting what they did to Zayn after the bell.

Looking to handicap the man who had taken the monster’s place, Corbin threw Zayn right back into Strowman’s clutches, and The Monster Among Men concluded Raw by chokeslamming his opponent through the commentary table in a reminder of what Sami Zayn won tonight: One golden opportunity, yes. But Zayn started Raw with only one enemy to his name. Now, he has eight.